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Stunted Growth?

Hey guys. Just wanted some info on undersized tegus. Mine is 2 years old, and she is so small. She spent most of her life hibernating (as I find isn't an uncommon issue on the forums at least) and is just now starting to grow at a faster rate. When I got her in the fall she went into hibernation rather quick (after a couple months) and I was told to just let her be. She came out of it around 4 or 5 months later and I fed her daily, although ahe did not eat daily. She did grow some, so I built her a new enclosure last summer (with a better heating/lighting setup in my opinion). Then this past winter she went down again. Didnt want to eat or anything and slept 22 hours a day. So once again I let her be. I wish i could go back and raise the basking temps or do something different so she could have kept up with her growth. Now this summer she eats like crazy and is now just over 26 inches long but not very bulky, although she is growing pretty fast I'd say compared to before. just a few weeks ago she was 24 inches long. I'd like to get her to bulk up more though as well as continue her growth in length. Any tips? I am going to raise the temps in her enclosure to 115 basking and upper 80's on the cool side especially for the winter months. I speculate she went into hibernation because my apartment at the time was cold the past 2 years due to bad insulation. I have a new place now with much better heat in the winter. I guess her tank may have gotten cooler which may have triggered a hibernation response? No idea. Any tips are helpful. Like I said she eats like crazy now and I feed her everything from turkey mixed with dark greens and berries, to salmon, chicken hearts and gizzards, all supplemented with calcium each meal and minerall with d3 once a week.

Also, because she is small at this age, will she still have the ability to grow to "full size"? Or will her growth always be stunted? I wish I could go back and try something different to keep her awake but in the winter months she would act so groggy and moody, but in the summer she's so nice and loving. Any help is much appreciated! Building a full size enclosure soon now that I have the room for it as well.

Colder weather is one of the cues a tegu may use to decide it's time to hibernate, so that is a likely scenario.

You say you use a multivitamin with D3 but do you use any UVB lighting or allow any outdoor access? Once a week oral D3 provided in a multivitamin is likely a very low dosage if there is no UVB. Most multivitamins that I have seen have a nearly negligible amount of D3 added.

Likely your tegu will not reach its full potential size. It will continue to grow, yes, but she may always be a bit smaller that she may have been if she had fed well during her younger years. Not to worry about though, it will not necessarily affect her health as long as her feeding behavior improves. I work with several rescued lizards, a Nile monitor for instance, who were not fed properly during their rapid growth period and are a bit small, but still very healthy under the improved conditions.